Star Trek: Vega Colony
by Mushuone1
Summary: The U.S.S. Dakota receives a distress call from the U.S.S. Khitomer. What they find puts hundreds of lives at stake. [Notice: This story is not complete. It needs many more chapters. They may come many at once or one at a time. Just be patient. And give me feedback!]


**Chapter 1**

Captain Taggert looked into the mirror. His dual lobes on his forehead bulged a little with his tension. His uniform, a grey color with red at the shoulders and collarbone with black trim in between, seemed faded with the dark lighting of his cabin. His Combadge beeped. "Transporter Room One to Captain Taggert?"

Taggert tapped his Combadge. "Go ahead." He replied.

"Your new duty officer is prepared to be beamed over, sir."

"I'll be right there." Taggert left his room and walked down the hallway to the turbolift. "Engineering." Taggert told the computer. Moments later he stepped into the transporter room. "Energize." Taggert ordered. The console made a few noises as a gleam of light began to appear, revealing the new officer. Taggert walked onto the Transported Pad and looked the officer in the eye. "Rank and abilities." He stated.

"Lieutenant, advanced combat and operations training, proficient warp core maintenance and science training, and basic medical training, sir." The man replied. Taggert noted his yellowish uniform with standard black trim along his sides.

Captain Taggert nodded. "Excellent. You're my new operations officer, correct?"

"Yes, sir."

"Welcome aboard, lieutenant." Taggert smiled and held out his hand. The lieutenant shook it. the officer found that Taggert's uniform was Sierra style. Grey on the lower three quarters while the top area was red with black placed on his collar and in some parts surrounding his shoulders, made to separate the red from covering his entire upper area. "I need you in engineering. You are just the man we need to give us some extra warp power.

"Thank you, sir. I'll get right on it!"

"Loosen up a little," Taggert said with a smile and grasped the lieutenant's left shoulder, "we're on our way on a long mission. I don't want anyone too stiff." The officer smiled at that, and walked down toward the warp core maintenance area.

"Never seen you here before. I'm Henry Jones. Chief Science Officer." A man said as he followed the lieutenant toward engineering.

"Fresh out of my training cruise," he replied, "I'm assigned here for operations work mainly. Oh, my name's Zahi. Zahi Whiplash."

"What kind of a name is that?" Henry asked with a chuckle.

"Mine."

Zahi got to engineering and walked up to a bulky man about three inches taller than him. "You the new engineer?" He asked.

"For the time being." Zahi replied.

The bulky man nodded. "Name's Danny. Lieutenant Danny Parks. I will be in charge of you for now."

"He is the Engineering Bridge Officer. He's the guy in charge down here." Henry stated.

"Do you have those tricorders, Henry?" Parks asked. Henry handed them over, then Parks added, "Thanks. Head to the upper floor and run a diagnostic of the dilithium chamber. Whiplash, go to the table over there and run a scan of the warp reactor." Zahi nodded and walked to the table.

The room was circular with the huge vertical tube being the warp core in the center. Around it were various consoles and computers, along with the main computer built like a table on one side. On the opposite side of the room was the beginning of a ramp that circled the room up a full story to a door into the next deck.

The table Danny mentioned lit up with schematics across it of the warp core. Zahi began typing in a few codes to bring up the reactor. He ran the diagnostic. There were small fluctuations coming from an emitter. He called over Parks. "Sir, this energy emitter is unaligned. I think if we slowed to warp 4.3 and shut off that emitter, we can use a small tractor beam to move it into place." Danny nodded and tapped his combadge.

"Captain, we need to slow down to warp 4.3 for a moment. It's an engineering situation." Parks stated.

"No problem, Lieutenant Parks." Taggert replied. Danny tapped his badge again. Zahi felt the movement of the ship slowing down from warp 7.3 to 4.3. "I love that feeling. It's the feeling of the ship not threatening to explode for once." Danny said. Zahi returned to the table and began issuing commands. The warp core dimmed it's glowing red color, and a blue light appeared within the side. Danny stood next to Zahi and watched. He typed in a few more controls, making the blue light shrink a bit horizontally.

"It's aligning." Zahi stated, looking up briefly. He tapped the table screen again and the blue light shrank again, but this time an alarm went off.

"Warp core stability becoming hazardous." A female computer voice said loudly. Zahi groaned and cancelled the command. The blue light grew a bit and alarms stopped. He tapped in a new command, making the blue field inside the warp core shorten vertically. The voice returned. "Warp energy emitter 4 is now aligned." Danny stared at Zahi for a moment, then nodded and went back to his work.

"Nice job." Someone said. Zahi turned and saw an Andorian Female. He had heard about Andorians. They were strong, but extremely paranoid. "I'm Thalia, the ship's third officer and head tactical officer."

"I thought it was standard that the first officer be head tactical." Zahi questioned.

"Well, normally yes, but Captain Taggert has a thing for his first officer."

"What do you mean?

"Well she is his wife." Thalia stated. Zahi shrugged and moved over to a computer against the wall. He began to type in his personal logs. Thalia leaned in over his shoulder. "You misspelled 'integrity.'"

"With all due respect, what exactly do you want?" Zahi asked.

"I am just seeing if you are really the one we need." Thalia replied. Zahi looked at her with a confused face, then returned to his work. Thalia got really close and whispered, "Captain Taggert is getting ready to replace his current operations officer. He might not work well in this mission." Zahi simply paused. He turned to look at her, but the Andorian was gone. Zahi continued to run diagnostics and check for fluctuations. A few hours later, he went to his assigned quarters. He laid down on his bed to nap, but his combadge beeped.

Zahi tapped the badge. "Whiplash."

"Report to my quarters, lieutenant." Captain Taggert stated. Zahi acknowledged and sat up. He then walked to the turbolift.

"Deck Eight." He stated. The computer acknowledged and began moving toward the deck where the Captain was. Zahi walked into the room to see a small table, paintings, and a few plants around the room. There was a door to an adjacent room, probably the bedroom, on his right. Taggert was next to the window, staring out at the slowly passing stars. "Sir?" Zahi asked.

"Lieutenant, do you know where we are going?" The Captain asked.

"Three light years off the Vega Colony to investigate a distress call from the Starship Khitomer." Zahi replied.

"Did anyone tell you what happened to it?"

"No." Whiplash replied, confused, he had thought the purpose of the mission was to find out what happened. Taggert walked over to a small console on the wall. He pushed a few buttons, then a message sprouted from the room's speakers.

"Starfleet! This is the U.S.S. Khitomer! We need assistance! Repeat, we need assistance! We are taking heavy damage! Anyone… We have engaged the Borg!" Zahi did not recognize the urgent voice from the speakers, but the last word of the message said it all.

"With all due respect, sir… I think we are going to need a bigger ship."


End file.
